Addresses as an infrastructure component : Danish experiences and perspectives

Abstract

Based on experiences from the development of the address system in Denmark, the paper discusses the benefits and disadvantages from different approaches to address management and to the conceptual modeling of address data. Also the definition of addresses is discussed. It is described how the Danish address system and the custodianship of base address data was enforced by law, and how consensus building between the stakeholders has created a situation where public maintained address data – including address points – since 2002 has been freely available for both public and private sector, to the benefit of both citizens, government and business. The paper discusses the concept of reference data in the context of the European INSPIRE directive on spatial data infrastructure as well as the characteristics of addresses as being reference data. The level of Danish data standardization for addresses is presented, and – and as a conclusion – a number of lessons learned is listed.